On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 09:04:52AM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, January 20, 2021 8:33 am, Chris Green wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 08:23:23AM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> The lock file is created in the same directory as the data file.
> >> Is that directory not writeable? That would cause the error.
> >
> > The directory is definitely writeable and there definitely isn't any
> > sort of lock file in the directory:-
> >
> > chris$ cd tmp/pcc/2020
> > /home/chris/tmp/pcc/2020
> > chris$ ls
> > building.gnucash building.gnucash.20210120121447.log general.gnucash
> > chris$ ls -al
> > total 504
> > drwxrwxr-x 2 chris chris 4096 Jan 20 12:14 .
> > drwxrwxr-x 3 chris chris 4096 Jan 20 12:13 ..
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 chris chris 212992 Jan 20 12:14 building.gnucash
> > -rw-rw-r-- 1 chris chris 381 Jan 20 12:14
> > building.gnucash.20210120121447.log
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 chris chris 290816 Jan 20 12:14 general.gnucash
> > chris$ gnucash general.gnucash
> > Found Finance::Quote version 1.49.
> > chris$
> >
> > The above sequence pops up the can't create lock file error.
>
> The "cannot obtain lock" error has multiple causes. Have you checked the
> Tracefile to see if there is anything printed that might suggest which
> error is happening?
>
> The error occurs when:
> 1) There is a lock file already there, or
> 2) There is NOT a lock file already present, but gnucash cannot create a
> new lock file
>
> If you're in case #2, then you won't see a lock file listed.
>
> Is your disk full? What do you get from:
> df /home/chris/tmp/pcc/2020
> df -i /home/chris/tmp/pcc/2020/
>
No, my disk isn't full:-
Filesystem Type 1M-blocks Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/nvme0n1p2 ext4 48174 13344 32315 30% /
/dev/nvme0n1p3 ext4 896193 308524 542077 37% /home
/dev/sdb1 ext4 10016 181 9307 2% /boot
/dev/sdb2 ext4 109596 27675 76313 27% /scratch
/dev/sda1 ext4 938772 225049 666014 26% /bak
> Also, what kind of filesystem underlies /home/chris/tmp/pcc/2020 ?
>
Standard linux ext4 (as you can see above).
> >> If GnuCash cannot create (and lock) the lock file then it will throw the
> >> error.
> >> If you are SURE that there is not another process running, you can "Open
> >> Anyways" and that will clear the error.
> >>
> > Yes, I realise that, but it's not "right". :-)
>
> It depends on the underlying error. If the lock file is actually there
> but, say, gnucash crashed, then "Open Anyways" *is* the right solution.
> Obviously that's not the case here.
>
Yes, OK, there are cases where "Open anyway" is the right solution,
but there seems to be something else going on here.
> >> NB that gnucash may mix the metadata for two versions of the same-named
> >> file located in different directories. The GCM file does not contain
> >> the
> >> file location information.
> >>
> > I'm not quite sure I follow that, I do have general.gnucash in two
> > different places. Are you saying that this may cause problems and
> > that I should rename my 'previous year' accounts to (for example)
> > general2020.gnucash as well as moving them to a suitably named
> > sub-directory?
>
> If you open a file foo.gnucash, gnucash creatres a metadata file
> foo.gnucash.gcm in $HOME/.local/share/gnucash/books. Now, if you copy
> foo.gnucash from DIR1/foo.gnucash to DIR2/foo.gnucash, when you open
> DIR2/foo.gnucash it will use the same foo.gnucash.gcm file, because DIR1
> vs DIR2 is not encoded anywhere.
>
> So yes, IF you decide to archive data files, you should change the name.
>
OK, that makes sense, thank you.
> NB: there is no need to start over every year; GnuCash hapily accounts for
> multiple years of data and reports know how to handle that.
>
That might make sense for me, I'm not quite sure. It's not a very
busy system so I can go for a month and see if I can then generate
what the auditor requires for 2020. If it all goes wrong I can undo a
month (I have daily incremental backups).
--
Chris Green
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